Hayley Atwell On Her Role In Howard's End

Howard’s End, EM Forster’s classic turn of the century novel about three middle class families – the Schlegels, Wilcoxes and Basts – has been adapted by Kenneth Lonergan for the small screen this November. Vogue caught up with Hayley Atwell to talk about her role, filling Emma Thompson's shoes and playing practical jokes...

I play Margaret Schlegel who is the beating heart of the story in that she represents the bridge between all the other people and class systems that they are involved in. I think she’s one of literature’s first feminists, she’s someone whose moral compass is geared to connect with other people and to see them as human beings rather than just their social status. She’s naturally curious – and probably incredibly nosy. She finds people endlessly fascinating and wants to know as much about them as possible.

It’s set in a time of social and political change, when women were enthusiastically campaigning for the vote and were fighting for equality. Does that issue still feel pertinent today?

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There’s been a misconception that women back then were stiff and mannered, melancholic and hysterical. A lot of the dialogue from Kenneth Lonergan’s script is taken directly from the book and so we have evidence here of women who were bright, original thinkers who were wanting to create some change in society. Not just on a political level, but on a personal one as well. They were encouraged to read and educate themselves more so than I think they’re often depicted. Yes, we’re freer now, but we still have an incredibly long way to go. We have the vote but we’re still not equal in many ways. It’s wonderful to see a women-led narrative about women who are warm, charismatic and vivacious, but they’re also compassionate, full of self-doubt and disappointment. To a greater or lesser extent we’re all trying to make our way through the world as best we can, given the tools that we have and the circumstances that we find ourselves in. That’s how we find Margaret – trying to make the best of things given the limitations of her day. And that’s very modern.

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What did you find appealing about the role?I’m quite a restless person and find it hard not to do much. If I’m just standing there looking pretty, I get really bored. And I think that might reflect in the fact that I play roles that require other aspects than just looking good. The women that I know in my everyday life are dynamic and full of contradictions. They’re multi-dimensional. Sometimes they’re a pain in the arse and sometimes they have moments of great insight. I feel I’ve been lucky with Margaret Schlegel to have gotten to a level in my career of maturity where I can play parts like that which are about brave ideas. That’s the kind of conversation that I want to be a part of. I’m not interested in just playing the wife or the sex symbol. I find that boring.

The themes of the book – class, gender, love – resonate as much now as then. Did it make you look at your own life differently?

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Yes. The Basts, Schlegels and the Wilcoxes all exist in the middle class but at different ends of it. The Wilcoxes are self-made capitalists and industrialists and they take advantage of the change at the time of factory workers and industry. And they take advantage of the lower middle class, the Basts, who are doing whatever they can to live above the poverty line. They’re in a place of survival. What Leonard Bast is trying to do so heartbreakingly is not gain social status by acquiring money, but by acquiring a rich mind. He likes literature and art and wants to be able to have philosophical discussions with the Schlegels but he’s not born into it, so it’s all very self-conscious. And then you have the Schelgels who are seeing the good and bad of the life of the Basts and Wilcoxes and how they interact with each other. I grew up in social housing in the inner city state schools of London, so my experience would be closest to the Basts. I didn’t come from money, I didn’t know what it was like to be given money from a family member. I always envied those who did. But having come from London I was very influenced by lots of different people. I definitely feel there are times when I’ve been in situations and my accent has changed because of the people I’m with. The main thing I feel about the class system is that it’s in our DNA and we’re all riddled with class prejudice, myself included.

It’s 25 years since Emma Thompson played Margaret Schlegel in James Ivory’s 1992 film, for which she won an Oscar. Does it feel like you have big shoes to fill?

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It’s funny, when we say there’s a new production of Macbeth at the Globe, our first thought isn’t ‘Didn’t Ian McKellen play Macbeth in Trevor Nunn’s production in 1979?’ When you have an adaptation, you have the added questions, which you don’t have in theatre. Emma said to me, don’t watch what I did, you are she and she is you. The only thing Emma had to say about it was how much fun I wold have playing such an extraordinary character.

Was it fun to dress up in long swishy skirts and Edwardian blouses?

It was. The corsets are a difficult one, it’s a physical cage for a woman. However, there was an elegance to the costumes and I found that it effects my walk, how I held myself, my gestures dependent on the constricting corsets. There’s a heaviness to the fabrics, which gives them weight and authority which is so different to how I am in my own life. When Margaret marries she becomes more severe and as she starts to lose a little of who she is, that's reflected in the costumes. Have you ever seen a friend who has a new boyfriend and you think they’re kind of dressing a bit differently? Like they've obviously started to dress more how you think your boyfriend would like you? That’s what’s so clever about these costumes, you look at Margaret and think you’re not yourself all of a sudden.

You worked with Matthew Mcfadyen on the BBC series Any Human Heart in 2010. Was it nice to be reunited?

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Everyone knows that Matthew is an utter delight to work with and it made it more fun that we had worked together before. There were no teambuilding exercises. We had this in joke that Margaret infantilises Henry and that by the end of the story, he’s basically just wearing a giant nappy and eating. On the last day of filming I put a nappy in his costume trousers, a dummy in his pocket, and a training potty on his toilet. Every time a runner got him a cup of tea it was put in a sippy cup.

How did he take it?

Well, he turned up to rehearsals wearing the nappy outside of his trousers. I was having my make-up done and I turned around to see him through a window just staring at me with a dummy in his mouth. Doing pranks on set makes everyone do the best kind of work because they’re all relaxed. We spent most of our time doing that really.